


Infection

by Clickclick (TotallyARealPerson)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Blood, Blood and Gore, Episode: s01e10 War Stories, Gen, Simon goes to the Academy AU, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29488143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotallyARealPerson/pseuds/Clickclick
Summary: "I'm covered in red."Red. It was red, a red liquid, redredred, all red, all sticky and coarse and - and he remembered when Jayne would sometimes come back with red on his shoes, and Mal would sometimes have red around his torso, when he was in pain, red showed up all the time, liquid red painting their clothing and skin-Simon wasn't meant to be red.
Relationships: River Tam & Simon Tam
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Infection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [willowoftheriver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowoftheriver/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Howl](https://archiveofourown.org/works/842167) by [willowoftheriver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowoftheriver/pseuds/willowoftheriver). 



> Companion piece to willowoftheriver's _Howl_. Please read for more context. All credit goes to her.

_The wound is lanced, the infection bleeding out. His pain dulls to an ache._

_And he wakes up._

The haze settled back out from under the cocoon of cotton. The room sounded loud, like he should've been here, but -

but.

Mal was in the corner, belted up and drugged and dying. His normal warm felt cold.

Coarse water dripped down his fingers. It was dripping down his hair and down his face. It was warm. It stuck to his clothing.

He wouldn't've been wearing his clothes in the shower. Even he knew that was a bad idea, and he was a little bit crazy anyway, like the stampeding fairies that live in the noise and the bugs that live in Jayne's ears.

"Simon!"

Sister-safe-selfsacrificial. "River."

He looked down at his arms.

"I'm covered in red."

Red. It was red, a red liquid, redredred, all red, all sticky and coarse and - and he remembered when Jayne would sometimes come back with red on his shoes, and Mal would sometimes have red around his torso, when he was in pain, red showed up all the time, liquid red painting their clothing and skin-

Simon wasn't meant to be red. Not on the outside. Red was meant to be inside him and he was meant to watch red and coax red back through torn skin, slashed and stabbed and shot-blown skin. Nothing hurt bad enough to leak this much. This red wasn't his red.

"I'm not- I'm not meant to be red."

River was coming closer, gently, with her hands out like he would run away.

He took a step back. Her skin, her dress, papery white, shouldn't be stained with the red he was painted in. There was something behind his heel, a body in a stained red suit-

 _Dead bodies don't alarm me,_ he'd once told Mal between giggles, offering his services on the Reaver-worn ship, a regular trip to his morgue down below the hospital - dead bodies couldn't harm him, so there was no reason no reason no reason to be scared of them. This one wasn't dead, and it did alarm him. It was a cold vacuum, it should've been dead, but it wasn't, it wasn't dead and it shouldn't feel like empty space and-

red pooled angrily around his feet, it was angry at him, it would never get out of his pant hems-

He turned back to his sister. "River, I-"

"It's alright, Simon."

The haze wasn't nice today. He knew it wasn't. The horrid people Mother and Father tried to introduce him to, all he wanted to do was play with his scalpels, loosen the knots on his clothes and arms and legs, stop being their puppet and be his own little boy doll, cut his marionette strings loose, but

He looked around. There was red behind her, behind Zoe, behind Jayne, at Mal's feet.

Something like ringing shot through his mind. The stairs out of this control room were leaking with little tiny rivers of red.

"Red glass."

He took a step back.

"Red glass, leaking, leaking, leaking."

Another step back and his bare feet were drippppping in red, too.

"Simon, do you recognize me?"

There was that sentence again. "Why do you always ask that?" he asked, not looking at her, taking another step away from the red-painted walls. They would turn brown with age, and they would leak and clot at the bottom, turn to makeshift flesh and bones and veins and broken, broken, brok-

("Because you don't always give the right answer" was very, very quiet, too quiet for him to hear, but he did and the haze somehow got worse.)

_Clots. A mass of coagulated blood stuck together. Could be fatal if left untreated in the human body. If there's a clotting disorder, treat with anticoagulants. If it's due to trauma, use a good disinfected needle to suck out the infection. Multiple clots too close to the organs, they may not be viable for transplant after death. Infarctions are common results - pulmonary embolisms, heart attacks, strokes..._

The walls weren't meant to be red. There were hints of silver and black accents under the puddles and dripping paint.

"I'm not meant to be red" wasn't the words supposed to come out of his mouth, but they did. No one tried to correct him, not even River who always corrected everyone ever, so it must've been true.

"I'm not meant to be red," he said again, like he was trying to convince himself.

It felt uncomfortable and sticky, horrible. The bottom of his feet were coated and dripping with the light red paint.

"I'm not meant to be red." His hands twitched toward his ears, like he could shake away the static hovering in his brain, "imnot meant to bered."

Everything was too loud, too bright, the red sinking through to his skin. There wasn't any pain in his skin, the red wasn't meant to be on the outside if there wasn't anything wrong-

He vaguely felt someone touching him, and punched them before they could get further. They reached for him again from behind this time. His legs kicked out, he snarled and kicked like the wild animals Dad always said not to touch. He felt wild-untamed-covered in coarse sticky red.

Sounds took seconds too long to register. He was hearing things through a veil of water, awkward and strange sounds. This was someone's talk, talking loudly, keeping him down. The hands of blue, they faded into place in place of the violent stabbing cold, where he was always sitting, restrained, watching needles come into his eyes and watchwatchwatch _whatdoyouseeThirteen?_

Simon yelled desperately, thrashing against the hands holding him down. He saw a little glimmer of metal sink into his thigh muscle.

_This is it, Simon. They're coming to take you away. Away from baby-sister-River and Mal and Zoe and Kaylee and Preacher Book-with-big-hair, and even Jayne-who-hated-him and Wash-who-smells-like-fear. The hands of blue will be the ones holding you down, injecting you with the cold drugs and cold needles and coldcoldcold_

He fell asleep under bruising pressure and horrible pain under his eyelids, the sticky red drying in his clothes, and a desperate apology he didn't have the direction or words to voice.

(Maybe an infection stayed trapped under the bleeding wound. He would never be able to dig it out.

_Your cells are lovely and clean, Bluehands, but I have promises to keep with River's people - the ones that can never be my people but maybe they can and no they can't.)_


End file.
